Dear Friends, Citizens, and Neighbors: Election Day is Tuesday, November 3rd. You will have the opportunity to determine, among other things, who represents you on the Milton City Council in Districts 1, 3, and 5. Regardless of the district in which you live, you will be able to vote for all three of these positions since they are all at-large. These past two years, I have been fortunate enough to represent you on the city council. This has afforded me a unique opportunity to get to know the members of the current council - how they govern, how they vote, and the direction I think they want to take the city. It is from this unique perspective that I provide my endorsements for this year's city council race.

Come November 3rd, I will be voting for candidates that I trust to make our Vision of Milton being "a distinctive community embracing small-town life and heritage while preserving and enhancing our rural character" a reality and who will represent ALL citizens in Milton from those living near Highway 9 to Arnold Mill Road and from Birmingham Road to Mayfield.

I will be voting for Bernard Wolff (District 1), Al Trevillyan (District 3), and Tina D'Aversa (Incumbent, District 5), and I urge you to do the same. You may be feeling that this election is not important since this is not a national election. You may even be disinterested because you feel past elections have only resulted in broken promises. This election is extremely important and will affect your life - from your property values to the quality of life that you and your families now enjoy in our wonderful city. Please do not let apathy dictate our city's future.We are at a crossroads. The decisions made by your city council in the next four years will set in motion the city we will become. Either we will remain the unique, rural, equestrian city we enjoy today or we will become "Every City USA" with high density development that requires a big government to maintain the accompanying infrastructure. A lot of attention has been given to our city's finances, and claims have been made that our city cannot thrive or even survive with our current revenues. One candidate has even gone so far as to say that lack of revenue is our city's biggest threat.

As one of the seven sitting council members who has insight into our city's budget, revenues, and expenditures, I believe this kind of talk is deceptive to our citizenry and is nothing more than a battle cry to usher in high density development and sewer into our city. Ironically, some of the same individuals who marketed for cityhood and who said we had enough money to thrive as a city are the same ones saying we do not have enough money now. Why is this? Simply put, with existing revenues, we have enough money to pay our bills, contribute to our reserves, and make gradual improvements to our infrastructure, parks and recreation, and essential services. No, we cannot run out tomorrow and buy up a bunch of parkland, repave all our roads, and fix all of our problematic intersections, but we do have enough money to do this over time and without having to raise taxes. Isn't this what the citizens were told when the city was created? No doubt, our public safety and other essential services are better now than when we were part of unincorporated Fulton County, and plans are already underway to secure more parkland and develop the parks we currently have. Managed, appropriately-placed, law-abiding growth and development is good for our economy and should be encouraged. Likewise, we need to be proactive in filling our vacant developments to generate revenue. It makes no sense to build more when we have vacant store fronts. Vacant store fronts and abandoned landscapes decrease our quality of life.

Our separation from CH2MHill will result in significant savings to taxpayers and better customer service. We need to form a Parks and Recreation Authority to proactively seek out alternative sources of funding and private-public partnerships. We also need to secure more federal and state grant money to improve our intersections and traffic. No doubt, if we have more high density development in Milton or encourage more east-west connectivity through our city, like several of this year's candidates have suggested, traffic will get worse and our rural, equestrian character will be diminished. If you want our city to remain the unique, rural, equestrian refuge it is now, yet make gradual, carefully designed improvements to our parks and recreation, infrastructure, and essential services over time and within our means, then you must vote for Bernard Wolff (District 1), Al Trevillyan (District 3), and Tina D'Aversa (District 5).Too often, a majority of our council approves variances to our zoning ordinance without the demonstrated hardship required by law. This has resulted in higher density, higher intensity of use development than what our zoning ordinance and land use plan allow.

In addition, at the request of Fulton County, a majority on council voted to extend sewer in Sept 2008. Sewer is a precursor to high density development. Some may argue that we can have sewer and control density through zoning. While this may be true in theory, there is not example of this in Georgia. In addition, it depends on having leaders who consistently vote to adhere to our zoning ordinance and land use plan and are not swayed by developer interests.

This kind of decision making has left our Vision in peril and has resulted in precedent-setting changes that are detrimental to our city. This cannot be allowed to continue.

Bernard Wolff (Candidate for Milton City Council, District 1)I believe Bernard Wolff is who Milton needs in District 1. He is a smart, thoughtful man who cares about the people of our City. He will represent ALL citizens, not just the ones who he knows or who live in his area of town. Bernard received an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School of Finance and Commerce. Now retired, he has over 30 years experience in international business, specializing in starting up small American companies to trade American products abroad. He served as an officer in the US Navy including a combat tour in Vietnam as Skipper of a Swift boat. I believe Bernard has the leadership skills and financial and business acumen necessary for city council. Bernard has no ties to developers - financial or otherwise. That, coupled with his background and experience, will allow Bernard to make sound, unbiased decisions grounded in the law. Bernard also opposes sewer extension. He is not against development, but he believes that developers should follow our zoning ordinance and land use plan and that variances should only be given when an extreme hardship exists. He is also passionate about parks and recreation. Please learn more about Bernard from visiting his website at www.bernardwolff4milton.com.

Al Trevillyan (Write-in Candidate for Milton City Council, District 3)I believe that Al Trevillyan will bring unique experience and ideas to our city. Al is intelligent and well versed on all the issues facing Milton. He has a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Purdue University and had a distinguished career as a research chemist. He also has many years of volunteer experience in local government and has been involved in charting our city's future since our inception. He is a former member of Milton's Comprehensive Plan Advisory Committee (CPAC) and has experience as a member of an economic development commission in Illinois. Al believes that the city should raise revenue by proactively seeking quality businesses to come to Milton to fill our empty store fronts and strip malls. He is opposed to sewer extension or high density development. He also understands the importance of adhering to our zoning ordinance, design guidelines, and land use plan. I believe Al will be extremely proactive in funding the necessary programs to keep crime at bay in Milton and our citizens safe. He has committed to having regular meetings with Milton's citizenry, and I believe he will be a fine addition to our council and someone who will value each and every citizen in our city - no matter where you live. Please learn more about Al from visiting his website at al4milton@comcast.net.

Tina D'Aversa (Incumbent for Milton City Council, District 5)

Tina D'Aversa has faithfully served the citizens of Milton on city council for the last three years and was very active in our city's planning stages as a member of the City of Milton Steering Committee. Tina has kept her commitments to citizens. She has a proven track record of opposing sewer expansion, high density development, and variances. She has been proactive in working to secure additional parkland and in developing our current parks. She was the sponsor of the resolution to form the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board and plans to bring a resolution forward to form a Parks and Recreation Authority. This will allow the City to explore alternative funding sources for parks and recreation. Tina has assured accessibility and inclusion for all citizens regardless of background, ethnicity, and ability levels. She sponsored the resolution to form the Milton Disability Awareness Committee. Over the past two years, Tina and I have partnered to introduce initiatives to improve the look and feel of the Highway 9 area and the quality of life of citizens living in the area. This included hosting the city's first ever town hall meeting for citizens living in the Highway 9 area in Districts 5 and 6. An outcome of this meeting was the creation of the Highway 9 Design Guidelines Committee - a collaborative group composed of citizens and business owners in the Highway 9 area whose task is to upgrade the building, architectural, and landscaping standards for the Highway 9 area. Tina and I have been proactively working with city staff to create Milton Police and Citizens Together (MPACT) - an initiative to be launched in the coming months that will have the goal of reducing crime through education, enhanced awareness, and implementation of neighborhood and business crime watch programs. You can trust that Tina will continue her solid track record of accomplishments that will benefit all citizens. Please visit Tina's website at www.tinadaversa.com to learn more about her. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to represent you on the city council. I look forward to continuing my work with my fellow council members including Tina D'Aversa, Bernard Wolff, and Al Trevillyan in 2010. I feel with Tina re-elected and with the addition of Bernard and Al, we will accomplish great things for our city and do so in a positive, proactive manner.

8 comments:

Shockingly predictable that the Queen of Tarts would endorse the Zahner Bailey ticket. This isn't even close to being news. His head is so far up Julie's butt that its unreal. Alan has absolutely no social skills and doesn't even know how to be polite to council colleagues or staff... just like Julie. Step one to restoring sanity to Milton is to defeat corrupt Tina and marginalize Julie and Alan into a minority of 2. Then in 2 years we'll see what the voters will do with those two.

I am really nervous about a council person who thinks there are NO concerns regarding the city's finances! We are on a 50 year road repaving plan when we should be on a 20! That doesn't sound like everything is hunky dorey to me.